8 DOWN, 21 TO GO FOR TRUMP

A bumper podcast episode kicks off with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg giving Donald Trump the news he’s been seeking: more European allies are hitting their pledges to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense. Previewing next week’s NATO summit, Stoltenberg also issues a mea culpa over cutting defense spending in Norway while he was finance minister in the 1990s. He puts his cards on the table as a big defender of EU defense co-operation (there are American grumblings about it these days), and says Trump is right to talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The podcast panel discusses a whirlwind of good deeds, hypocrisy and protest at the European Parliament this week. MEPs proved they are happy to grill others but not themselves when they exempted their expenses from scrutiny even as far-right MEPs were forced to pay back €500,000 they blew on champagne and fancy dinners. The MEPs did at least agree to ban unpaid internships in the institution (about a fifth of Parliament interns are paid less per month than the cost of one fancy National Front dinner).

ONE-ON-ONE

Mateusz Morawiecki, prime minister of Poland

The Polish PM is the acceptable face of his country’s ruling Law and Justice party.

The party’s most powerful figure, Jarosław Kaczyński, may be unpopular in Brussels, but the EU elite has been charmed by 50-year-old Morawiecki, who is equally comfortable quoting the left-wing economist Thomas Piketty, describing Christianity as Europe’s essence and dismissing criticism of the forced retirement of Polish judges, citing “constitutional pluralism.”

EU Confidential caught up with Morawiecki before last week’s EU summit and was surprised by his malleability on sensitive EU topics. He praised Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron for pushing a digital tax, and strongly supported the Jean-Claude Juncker Investment Plan: “We need positive examples in Europe.” He would say that, of course: The European Commission wants to cut Poland’s regional subsidies by 23 percent.

Morawiecki also insisted he is “not ideological” about potential Polish membership of the euro, he just wants Polish salaries to catch up to Western Europe before a decision is taken.

Morawiecki spoke with brutal force about Europe’s tax failures and tax havens. He slammed multinational tax avoidance and “VAT mafias” who, he said, defraud European taxpayers of €325 billion a year. Proclaiming Poland as a world leader in fighting fraud, Morawiecki cited these efforts, and EU projects on defense, innovation and public investment, as ways to boost European integration, and ease “populist-related tensions.”

What about that “populist” label attached to his own government? “Is meeting the expectations of our citizens truly populistic? Or maybe it is the essence of democracy,” he said.

On migration, the Polish PM said he would be “absolutely willing to pay more” into funds supporting North Africa and Syria, and supported the idea of a broader Marshall Plan for Africa.

He said Europeans ignore Poland’s efforts to absorb Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s war in the Donbas region. When EU Confidential noted that Poland sends millions of its citizens abroad, but accepts very few inward migrants, Morawiecki complained about the Schengen zone: “We already lose. You want me to lose again?”

EU WTF?!

UK takes credit for EU rules — and Juncker foils his own plan: Weirdness infects the whole political spectrum these days. U.K. Conservatives this week tweeted in celebration of the implementation of new consumer protection rules that will benefit holidaymakers. Someone at Conservative HQ forgot to check who made those rules: Brussels. Meanwhile at last week’s EU summit, after kissing police officers stationed outside the summit and then wobbling into the meeting, Jean-Claude Juncker deployed a genius way of detecting which national leader was leaking information from the summit table. (Spoiler alert: It’s most of them.) Juncker gave a false date for his planned White House visit. The problem is he gave everyone the same false information, leaving him no closer to catching the leaker.

CATCHING OUR EYE

Who’d have thought it? This recently uncovered beautiful room can be found at Gare du Nord, Brussels’ least lovely train station (and it has stiff competition).

FEUD OF THE WEEK

The Occupy Strasbourg movement: In 2017 you couldn’t find an MEP when poor Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat addressed an empty Parliament chamber. This year people were literally tripping over them. Left-wing MEPs, acting in solidarity with striking interpreters, on Tuesday delayed the opening of Parliament by 40 minutes (including a speech by Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov) by blocking access to the chamber. One interpreter told EU Confidential the strike is not a dispute about money, but about Parliament pushing interpreters to work too much, affecting the quality of interpretation on offer. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was unimpressed: “This is not normal. Full stop,” he said before claiming MEPs would not disrespect France’s Emmanuel Macron or Germany’s Angela Merkel in the same way.

EU-US RELATIONS

Rutte is rude, but Trump’s still ruder: Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is either a hero or rude for interrupting U.S. President Donald Trump to tell him that a trade war is never good thing, during a press conference Monday. Either way it was a very polite, smiling and un-Dutch kind of interruption. The same can’t be said for Trump’s latest letter to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Trump wrote that he and Melania had been “delighted” to host King Felipe and Queen Letizia in Washington in June, while “reminding” the Spanish leader of his predecessor Mariano Rajoy’s promise to increase Madrid’s defense spending. Which is a little bit like sending your dinner guest a thank-you note that also tells them to bring better wine next time.

QUOTABLE

“I won’t be dismissed by a chancellor who is only chancellor because of me.” — Germany’s rebellious Interior Minister Horst Seehofer on Angela Merkel, after he threatened to quit.

“I’m a big fan of Wiener Schnitzel. I had it across the world, but we need a bit more of Wiener Schnitzel in the house now.” — Jean-Claude Juncker confusing everyone while addressing Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

ACRONYM OF THE WEEK

US FART Act: That’s the Fair and Reciprocal Tariffs Act, under consideration in the United States.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH

Former U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman.